Seattle mayor encourages businesses to shun law-abiding citizens

McGinn presented the new gun-free zone decal at Oddfellows on Monday. Cupcake Royale is reportedly another one of the businesses that will be posting the gun-free zone sign. "That one hurt a little bit," says David Boze. "I look at the Cupcake Royale and I thought, that's the kind of place I might have wanted to go, but look, if I see a sticker on there that says you don't want me in there, and you don't want concealed permit weapon holders in there, fine I won't go in, I'll go to Starbucks or something." (Twitter image - Mike McGinn)

I can't get over how stupid Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn is being with this gun-free zone idea.

Mayor McGinn is asking businesses to put a sticker on the outside of their store declaring themselves gun free, telling people that their concealed weapons are not welcome there if they are concealed weapons permit-holders. That is another way of saying "We don't want concealed-carry permit holders as customers."

Why is that strange?

Because study after study shows that the people that are least likely to commit a crime, any crime, are people that are concealed weapon carry permit holders.

In Texas, the Texas Department of Public Safety, published a list of crimes committed in Texas in 2011, identifying everybody convicted and anyone convicted that carried a concealed-carry permit. Concealed-carry permit holders committed less than 1 percent of the crimes, and not all of those crimes even involved firearms or violence.

In other words, you have a population that is much less likely than the general population overall, to commit any kind of crime, and it's not just in Texas, the same thing is going on in Kansas. Out of 51,078 permits, 44 permit holders were charged with a crime while carrying a firearm between 2007 and 2012.

Over and over again, you see this in state after state, the people who are least likely to commit a crime are concealed weapon permit holders.

I think the established fact here is you've got a very law-abiding, rule-abiding citizenry that Mayor McGinn wants to put up a big sign in Seattle that says, "You are not welcome here."

He thinks this will be the thing that reignites his mayor campaign. Maybe he's right. Maybe in Seattle, this is what they want. But I can tell you a lot of people, including those who don't have concealed-carry, who are just firearm enthusiasts, hunters or the like, and their wives and family, they will not be going into stores with that decal because they're going to say, "Fine, I'll take my business elsewhere."

So while some of these groups are jumping on this bandwagon all excited to be part of the liberal cause, I don't think this is one of those things that will catch fire and actually be of benefit to any of these companies.

All you're doing is you're saying, "Hey, the most law-abiding portion of the Washington state populous, stay out of my store, so there."